On Wednesday, while having recess in the SAC (canteen) with classmates, I finished my plate of noodles and was waiting for the rest to finish theirs. Suddenly, a young boy (year 3 or below) carrying a pack of Oreos suddenly walked towards me and took my plate away. I was quite stunned at first and didn’t have time to react before he turned to walk away. After trailing him, my friends and I realised he wasn’t trying to play a prank or anything – he put my plate back to the correct stall container. This incident left quite an impact on me because I regretted not acting fast enough to thank him (and partly because I had no idea why I was his only target).

Thursday was violin exam day. I took one day to get over it. I hope I manage a pass, at least. I was feeling quite disappointed because I made quite a few unforgivable mistakes in my playing. Argh. Ok I don’t want to think about it anymore. I’ll decide how to react when the result comes out.

Today, there was supposed to be cross country. Most of the school dutifully turned up at West Coast Park, but just around 7 plus, there were huge storm clouds looming towards us and the wind was blowing really hard. But since there was no rain yet, we weren’t dismissed. At about 8am, it started pouring like crazy. There were a few tents set up around the big lawn, but fitting over 3000 students in them was certainly no joke. There was no way we could stay dry, especially when the strong winds were blowing all the rain into the narrow tents. Soon, the field started flooding and our shoes started getting soaked. It was a really pathetic sight. For over an hour, the whole school was just crammed under tents – most trying to fight the rain with umbrellas, and others either chatting or playing with their phones.

After more than an hour, the school was officially dismissed, but we couldn’t really move anywhere since we were stranded at our “safe spots”. Most people crowded at Macs or went home.

Tian Kai, Sharon, Justin, Yi Kai and I were huddled under a tent which was quite empty since most people had left. Standing under a tent hardly made any difference at all since the wind was just blowing all the rain at us. We later decided to walk out to find shelter on solid ground to avoid soaking our feet in a nutritious mud bath. By then, we were drenched through and shivering (literally) each time a gust of wind came.

For the next hour, we sat in one of the small shelters along the park and tried to wait for the rain to stop. It was cold, wet and tiring. We had to sit close together to conserve warmth and there were 2 umbrellas on hand used to try to block out wind and rain. I can’t describe fully how cold we were. My body had periodic vibrations (like a hand phone?) and my teeth started chattering occasionally. After what seemed like a very long wait, we decided to walk through the lighter rain (it hardly mattered anymore since we were already soaked). Then we rested at Macs and had lunch there.

Looking back on how I spent my morning, I think it was a traumatising, yet memorable experience. It’s these challenges you go through with others that strengthen bonds and create long lasting memories.

The five of us stranded in the field with our shoes thoroughly soaked

After lunch, we went to watch Despicable Me. That kind of sums up my tiring day.